Network Security Toolkit FAQ
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Network Security Toolkit FAQ Ronald Henderson rhenderson@unifiedholdings.com Paul Blankenbaker [email protected] Network Security Toolkit FAQ by Ronald Henderson by Paul Blankenbaker Copyright © 2003 Respective Authors Where to find answers to frequently asks questions related to the use of the Network Security Toolkit. Table of Contents 1. General Information ........................................................................................................1 What is the Network Security Toolkit? .....................................................................1 What are the System Requirements?.........................................................................1 What is the Recommended System? .........................................................................1 Where do I go for information?..................................................................................2 Where can I get the Network Security Toolkit? .......................................................2 What is the password?.................................................................................................2 How can I Avoid Setting the Password Each Time It Boots?.................................3 What is the IP Address? ..............................................................................................4 2. Trouble Shooting ..............................................................................................................7 Why Does My NST Boot So Slow? ............................................................................7 Why can’t I boot the Network Security Toolkit CD? ..............................................7 Why did my keyboard stop working? ......................................................................8 What’s Wrong with My Console Keyboard and Fonts? .........................................8 3. Tricks On Using The Tools............................................................................................11 Where Are the ettercap Configuration Files?.........................................................11 How Can I Use My Own ettercap Configuration Files? ......................................11 How Do I Start/Stop/Customize Argus? ..............................................................12 What is the Argus URL?............................................................................................13 Why Do I Have to Login to Argus?.........................................................................13 Why Aren’t There Graphs In Argus? ......................................................................13 How Do I Get Argus To Send Email Notifications?..............................................13 How Do I Simply My Argus Setup?........................................................................14 Initializing the $NSTHOME/var/argus Directory..........................................14 Updating $NSTHOME/setup.sh. .....................................................................14 4. Source Code .....................................................................................................................17 How Can I Get The Source?......................................................................................17 How Can I Get The Current Source?.......................................................................17 How Do I Get The Red Hat 9 Branch? ....................................................................17 How Do I Merge Changes Across CVS Branches?................................................18 How Do I View Differences Across CVS Branches?..............................................19 How Do I Build The Network Security Toolkit ISO?............................................19 What can I make?.......................................................................................................20 Why do I get so many warnings and errors during the build?...........................20 How Do I Find Broken Links?..................................................................................21 5. Serial Port .........................................................................................................................23 How does the Network Security Toolkit use the serial port? ..............................23 What settings should I use to connect to the serial port?.....................................23 iii iv Chapter 1. General Information What is the Network Security Toolkit? The Network Security Toolkit is a bootable CDROM based on Red Hat Linux 91 with additional network security tools installed and ready to run. Before each release, the developers strive to make certain that the released ISO image contains the latest security patches and fixes for Red Hat Linux 92 and the additional network security tools. What are the System Requirements? The system requirements for running the Network Security Toolkit include follow- ing: • A Pentium class CPU (Pentium II 266MHz or above). • At least 128MB of RAM. • A CDROM drive and BIOS capable of booting from a CD. It should be noted that the CDROM drive is the bottle neck in the system. If your system has an old 4X CDROM drive, you’ll find spending $20 USD on a new 52X drive will vastly im- prove your experience. • A Red Hat Linux 93 supported Ethernet Adapter It is important to note that a hard disk is not required. And though the Network Security Toolkit has the capability to access hard disks, it does not do so by default. In addition to the minimum requirements, the following equipment is supported: • A video adapter and monitor. • A keyboard. • A standard serial port. • Multiple Ethernet Adapters. • A mouse. • Disk drives. • USB devices. What is the Recommended System? If you are like Ron (heavily involved in setting up and Enterprise Network Security Architectures in the real world), you’ll probably find yourself wanting to build cus- tom Network Security Toolkit systems. Most likely, you’ll be able to use most compo- nents that you come across. However, if you’d rather be safe, you may want to make use of Ron’s current entry level parts list. If nothing else it serves as a good starting point for a suggested component list to get NST up and going. The following table is a breakdown of Ron’s entry level parts preference and approximate prices as of 2004-Mar-21 (all amounts are in USD). A great resource for these components can be purchased at InternetiShop4. This particular system configuration includes 3 10/100 network interfaces. It is important to stress that a CDROM with a fast read speed (52x) is beneficial to experience the best results from NST. Table 1-1. Ron’s Entry Level NST Component List 1 Chapter 1. General Information Component Specification Price Case Tower Configuration $20.00 Motherboard Intel Socket 478 (Includes $55.00 USB and a 10/100 NIC) CPU 2.0GHz Celeron $75.00 Memory DDR 266 512MB $85.00 CDROM 52x Speed $20.00 10/100 NICs 2 Additional 10/100 NICs $18.00 Total: $273.00 Where do I go for information? Information about the Network Security Toolkit can be found at the project’s main web site: http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/. Where can I get the Network Security Toolkit? You can find the latest ISO images of the Network Security Toolkit at the project’s SourceForge6 site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nst. What is the password? For those of you that simply download the ISO, burn it and boot it, the quick answer to this question is: "You get to set/choose the password for the root user each time you boot the Network Security Toolkit CD." After doing so you will be able to log in as root with the password that you specified. Note: For release 1.0.4 and earlier, you log in as root with the password of nst@2003 initially. You should immediately run the nstpasswd command to change this to a different value. Addressing the issue of the default password for the root user has been time con- suming. This sounds like such a simple problem, but has caused Ron and I headaches in coming up with a proper balance between security and convenience. Here are some of the issues we need to deal with: • There are people who use the Network Security Toolkit to learn about both net- work security and the Linux operating system. These people may inadvertantly boot up a Network Security Toolkit probe connected to the Internet without run- ning the nstpasswd command to reset the default password. While this may be convenient, it leads to an insecure system which others could easily gain access to. • Some Network Security Toolkit probe systems do not have keyboards or displays attached (this is actually our targeted platform for a running Network Security Toolkit probe). This makes running the nstpasswd command inconvenient as one will either need to connect a serial terminal or make a network ssh connection in order to change the passwords. • Those who build their own ISO image from the source can set a custom password so that their Network Security Toolkit probe will be secure at boot time. This will 2 Chapter 1. General Information be inconvenient (as building a Network Security Toolkit ISO image from scratch takes a considerable amount of time and effort. • Sometimes, one might choose one of the boot options (like base) which doesn’t load in the utilities of the CD. In this situation, we can’t run the nstpasswd com- mand as all of the files that need to be updated have not yet been loaded into RAM. However, in this situation, the network functionality of the Network Secu- rity Toolkit system is not running, so the system is still secure at this point